Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced his readiness to be vaccinated against the coronavirus with a vaccine from Russia or China, if they are registered in the European Union.
"Yes, if vaccines are allowed in Europe," Welt am Sonntag quoted Kurz as saying if he was ready to be vaccinated with Sputnik V or a Chinese drug.
He noted that in the case of vaccines "it is only about efficiency, reliability and quick access, not about geopolitical struggle."
The challenge, he said, is to get a safe drug as quickly as possible, regardless of who developed it.
The Chancellor also criticized the work of the European Medicines Agency, noting the slow speed and bureaucratic difficulties that affect the provision of vaccines to Europeans.
At the same time, he announced Austria's readiness to provide the production capacity of suitable local enterprises for the Russian or Chinese vaccine.
We will remind, on August 11, Russia was the first in the world to register a vaccine against COVID-19.
A drug called "Sputnik V" was developed by the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after honorary academician N.F.
Gamalei.
This is a two-component vector vaccine based on the human adenovirus, which contains an insert in its genome that encodes a fragment of the SARS-CoV-2 S-protein and induces an immune response in the body.
Vaccination of each person is carried out in two stages, the time interval between which is 21 days.
The effectiveness of "Sputnik V" after 21 days from the moment the volunteers received the first component of the vaccine was 91.4%.
There were no significant side effects in the volunteers participating in the study.
Against severe cases of coronavirus disease, the effectiveness of the drug was 100%.
The developers of the drug emphasized that Sputnik V is also effective against the new SARS-CoV-2 strain discovered in Europe in December.
To date, the Sputnik V vaccine has already been registered in a number of countries, including Russia, Belarus, Argentina, Bolivia, Serbia, Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Tunisia, Palestine, Iran and Lebanon.
Hungary was the first country in the EU to approve the use of Sputnik V at the end of January.
The RDIF clarified that this happened as part of the Emergency Use Authorization based on data from clinical studies of Sputnik V in Russia and a comprehensive assessment of the drug by Hungarian experts.
In addition, at the end of January, an application for registration of the Sputnik V vaccine was submitted to the EU structure - the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
RDIF expects the rolling review process to begin in February.
The EMA's decision on Sputnik V is to be made after a series of peer reviews.
In early February, Czech Prime Minister Andriy Babis said that Prague is interested in the EMA's quick approval of Sputnik V.
He also said that the origin of the vaccine does not matter, the main thing is the safety of the drug.
Scientific breakthrough
Bloomberg journalists expressed the opinion that the Sputnik V vaccine against the Russian-made coronavirus was Russia's largest scientific breakthrough since Soviet times.
"Russia has made its perhaps the largest scientific breakthrough since Soviet times," the article notes.
The authors of the material stressed that in the global battle to defeat the pandemic, the "vaccine race" has acquired geopolitical significance.
According to the agency, the results of the third phase of a clinical trial of a Russian drug, previously published by The Lancet, showed that this vaccine "is not inferior to American and European counterparts and is more effective than the Chinese one."
globallookpress.com
© Luis Lima Jr / Keystone Press Agency
Recall that in early February, the scientific journal The Lancet published the results of the third phase of clinical trials of the Russian vaccine against coronavirus infection COVID-19 "Sputnik V", confirming its high efficiency.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in particular, spoke about this publication, calling the test results good.
According to Bloomberg, after this article, many states "stood in line", wanting to order Sputnik V.
In this regard, foreign journalists believe, Russia has gained primacy in the global confrontation with the pandemic as "one of the few countries where scientists have developed effective protection."